Paramount Global chairwoman and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone is battling cancer as she tries to steer the media company through a turbulent sales process.
“Shari Redstone was diagnosed with thyroid cancer earlier this spring,” her spokeswoman Molly Morse said late Thursday. “While it has been a challenging period, she is maintaining all professional and philanthropic activities throughout her treatment, which is ongoing.
“She and her family are grateful that her prognosis is excellent,” Morse said.
The news comes nearly 11 months after Redstone agreed to sell Paramount to David Ellison’s Skydance Media in a deal that would end the family’s tenure as major Hollywood moguls after four decades.
However, the government’s review of the Skydance sale hit a snag amid President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit against Paramount and its subsidiary CBS over edits to an October “60 Minutes” broadcast.
Redstone, 71, told the New York Times that she underwent surgery last month after receiving the diagnosis about two months ago. Surgeons removed her thyroid gland but did not fully eradicate the cancer, which had spread to her vocal cords, the paper said.
She continues to be treated with radiation, the paper reported.
The Redstone family controls 77% of the voting shares of Paramount. Her father, the late Sumner Redstone, built the company into a juggernaut but it has seen its standing slip in recent years. There have been management missteps and pressures brought on by consumers’ shift to streaming. The trend has crimped revenue to companies that own cable channels, including Paramount.
Redstone has wanted to settle the lawsuit Trump filed in October, weeks after “60 Minutes” interviewed then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump accused CBS of deceptively editing the interview to make Harris look smarter and improve her election chances, a charge that CBS has denied.
The dispute over the edits has sparked unrest within the company, prompted high-level departures and triggered a Federal Communications Commission examination of alleged news distortion.
The FCC’s review of the Skydance deal has become bogged down. If the agency does not approve the transfer of CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family, the deal could collapse.
The two companies must complete the merger by early October. If not, Paramount will owe a $400-million breakup fee to Skydance.
Redstone, through the family’s National Amusements Inc., also owes nearly $400 million to a Chicago banker and tech titan Larry Ellison, who is helping bankroll the buyout of Paramount and National Amusements.